IRS vs eBay

The savages in Washington are not satisfied with today’s levels of plunder. How to increase revenues? By going after auctions:

The U.S. Treasury Department wants Congress to force auction sites like eBay, Amazon.com and uBid.com to turn over the identities and Social Security numbers of a large portion of their users to the IRS–so tax collectors know how much each person made through online selling.

All in the name of closing the “Tax Gap”, 80% of which consists of underreporting of income (Oh no!).

The proposed legislation has the potential to turn off a lot of folks who would be forced to disclose their SSN just to sell things on eBay. Also sales tax initiatives are already on the horizon.

Oh well, it was only a matter of time before the state turned its guns on the Internet.

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10:12 pm on April 14, 2007